Startup Uses Novel Materials Based on Plasmonic Effects

A startup focused on developing novel optical materials received $1 million in first-round funding last month from the venture capital firm Quantum Wave Fund to advance its early-stage technology. Nano-Meta Technologies, based in West Lafayette, Indiana, is developing prototype hard drive heads that could improve the storage density of magnetic disk drives, as well as nanoparticles that could be used in light-driven cancer therapies.

Nano-Meta Technologies was spun out of the Purdue University labs of Vladimir Shalaev and Alexandra Boltasseva last year. The company is developing nanostructured compounds that can concentrate light through plasmonic effects to surmount a hurdle called the diffraction limit, which affects the resolution of light microscopes and lithography.